Some very interesting sentences in there, especially with some of the recent talk around academics on the bluff.

Smeulders is expected to play a large role next season as a sophomore. Portland, which returns no post players to the 2007-08 roster, will be a young team featuring nine underclassmen among a roster of 12. If practice play is any indicator, Smeulders will be asked to be a major contributor from the get-go. A confident basketball player and quality student – he just missed making the Dean’s List spring semester – Smeulders is the type of student-athlete that head coach Eric Reveno is trying to build his program around.

Basically, they like Smuelders' play and academics, and they are obviously looking for guys to succeed in both arenas. And, I also consider this official that jones is gone. I sure hope Smuelders makes an impact, because we may really need an impact player down low next year.

But but but... about Smeulders. Here is a guy who is a native Dutch speaker, grew up in Germany, and has English as a third language. Yet he goes out there and almost gets on the Dean's list.

Now, I realize he wasn't travelling with the team to road games, but it's not like he was missing practices or anything like that. He was an active member of the team.

So if a guy like that can succeed academically at UP, then why have guys like Dominguez, Tiefenthaler, McTear, Jones, etc. struggled? In my book, it looks like there really can't be any excuses made, ala Droppindimes in the OregonLive forum.